She said: “The sophisticated gene analysis that led to this finding was only possible because of the large number of ALS samples available.

“The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge enabled The ALS Association to invest in Project MinE’s work to create large biorepositories of ALS biosamples that are designed to allow exactly this kind of research and to produce exactly this kind of result.”

Celebrities including Tom Cruise, Rita Ora, Mark Zuckerberg, Lewis Hamilton and Robert Downey Jr, also took part in the challenge.